Architecture Assurance – The Road to Success

The aim of the Architecture Assurance is to provide collaborative architecture processes for assuring complete implementation of the technical solutions that are aligned with the business drivers of an enterprise in a timely environment. The effective sharing of the information across different Business Units (BU) / departments within an enterprise and interoperability across IT systems would ensure the alignment of IT with business. The Architecture Assurance Group (AAG) is involved in reviewing the Project Architecture during the design and development phases of an application/system to help ensure successful project implementation. This review also ensures that the proposed system fits into the existing enterprise environment as well as the future architecture vision.

The goals of Architecture Assurance include some or all of the following:

Identify inconsistencies in the architecture early, which reduces the cost and risk of changes required later in the life cycle

Provide an overview of the compliance of architecture to mandated enterprise standards

Identify where the standards may require modification

Identify services that are currently application-specific but might be provided as part of the enterprise infrastructure

Take advantage of advances in technology

Communicate to management the status of the technical readiness of the project

Identify and communicate significant architectural gaps to product and service providers

Establish, own and manage Enterprise Architecture Content

Provide architecture governance: guidelines and recommendations on business and IT architecture

Ensure and enforce architecture compliance: review changes and deviations in business and IT architecture

Resolve architectural ambiguities, issues and conflicts at the enterprise level

Identify projects that have high architectural risk, and provide assistance to them early and often throughout the project

Architecture is reviewed by a group of experienced architects across the enterprise

Assistance in leveraging the existing architecture promoting the reusability

Architecture for plug and play

Promote simplification and standardization

Proactively identify risks to the project

Provide enterprise-wide context to project team

Maintain the integrity of the enterprise IT environment and expand the user community's access to Enter resources

Does the project presents risk to the IT environment (e.g., infrastructure, other applications, users, enterprise policy)

Allows Architecture Review Team to proactively recognize when modifications to the architecture are required

Allows the project team to provide input to the extension of the proposed architecture

Does the project leverage the existing common services where applicable

Provides cost effectiveness across the enterprise

Architecture Assurance MethodologyThe Architecture Assurance Group is a multi-disciplinary body that is responsible for the maintenance and enforcement of Architecture, Design standards and best practices across the programs/projects. The primary responsibility is to provide governance and ensure compliance of the defined enterprise / solution architecture.

Architecture Assurance is the key success factor in ensuring high quality deliverables for the architecture and design phases. The intent of the Architecture Assurance Process is to ensure that ongoing projects have the right architectural assumptions and that in-flight projects receive architectural guidance throughout the life cycle. This should be a collaborative effort to ensure that project designs and implementations are compliant with the defined architecture

A detailed Architecture Assurance process that achieves these goals is shown in Figure 1.

Review PreparationArchitecture/Design Review(s) should be conducted at a stage when there is still time to correct any major inconsistencies or shortcomings in the program/project.

The Architecture/Design Review is typically targeted for the Analysis SDLC phase and at a point in time when:

Business goals, business requirements, policies are defined

Ball park clarity of hardware and software requirements & decisions are not finalized

Project schedules / timelines are defined

Project risk assessment is done

Architecture Review Criteria is:

Start Early

Drive and Participate in architecture workshop

Establish relation with architecture & design teams

CIO, CTO & Developer Resources

Involve through architecture & design

Involve and review the architecture and design decisions on an ongoing basis

Conduct formal/informal reviews of intermediate and final architecture deliverables to ensure ongoing compliance and quality

Review and track architecture and design decisions

Solution FitmentIn this phase, Architecture Assurance look for a high-level functional fit and nonfunctional fitment of the solution. Also verifies the solution mapping with the design and various options provided for the solution, reasons for the choices, TCO analysis of each option, etc.

Standards AdherenceIn this phase, the verification of the alignment of the solution with the architecture requirements is done. Proper realization of the Architecture Principles, Architecture Patterns, IT Strategy alignment are performed in this phase. Any deviation of the standards needs to be approved by the Architecture Assurance Group.

Report PreparationIn this phase, the report will be reviewed in terms of Business, Data, application & Technology. Also, identification of the open items, action items and next steps will be addressed & communicated to the project team

TrackingThe prepared report will be presented to the Program management & track the observations to the closure. In this Phase, we oversee the updated architecture artifacts

Developing a project description that provides sufficient detail for the review team to evaluate architectural risks, including the project size, business impact, NFRs, Architecture Principles

Sharing project estimates

The Architecture Assurance Team is responsible for:

Assessing projects for architectural impact during the Proposal/Project Initiation phase of the SDLC processes

Providing guidance to projects through the design phase to ensure that the final design is architecturally compliant

Prepare/Customize Architecture Templates, Architecture Checklist

Participate in the Architecture Review meetings to provide support to project teams and to assist the Architecture Assurance Group in decision making.

Analyze the filled up Checklist, Summarize the review findings

Customize Architecture Metrics

As part of the Architecture Review Process the following standards of the system need to be reviewed and agreed

Business:

Business Strategy, Goals & Vision

IT Strategy

Existing Budgets, Resource Plans, Project Plans

Business Scope Description

Use Case Specification

Business Requirements Document (BRD)

Service Level Agreements

TCO Model (CAPEX/OPEX etc.) - Funding Status

Build/Buy/Reuse(Retrofit) Considerations

Business process modeling and workflow system

Business Process Optimization

Business Process Analysis

Business Process Monitoring & SLA's

Application:

Application platform

Programming/scripting language

Testing/monitoring tools

User interface platform

Enterprise application integration platform

Conceptual Architecture

Logical Architecture

Physical Architecture

Security Architecture

Portal platform

Architecture Frameworks

Performance Tuning Plan

Migration Plan

Tool/Vendor Selection Results

Data:

Data Strategy

Logical Data Model (LDM)

Physical Data Model (PDM)

Data integration platform

Reporting and data analysis platform

Infrastructure:

Server platform and operating system

Desktop platform and operating system

Bill of Materials

H/W & S/W Acquisition/Lease Plan

Security Implementation/Management Plan

Deployment Plan

Operational Readiness Plan

Release Plan

Network infrastructure

System Performance Report

Disaster Recovery Plan

Architecture Assurance Lead will perform the following activities:

Assign Review Team

Disagreement/Issue Resolution

Review Findings discussion and agreement & communication with the project/program team

Review members will:

Commit to review all materials in advance

Prepare detailed questions using this practice standard and Checklist as appropriate

Conduct any preliminary research as necessary to be an informed team member

Attend all review meetings

Provide a final assessment and recommendation based on their interpretation of the impact of the proposed solution architecture and design on the Enterprise Architecture.

AcknowledgmentsAuthors like to thank Hari Kishan Burle, General Manager, Wipro Technologies for giving us the required time and support in many ways in bringing this article as part of Architecture Assurance Practice efforts.

Dr. Gopala Krishna Behara is a Senior Enterprise Architect in the Enterprise Architecture & Solutions division of Wipro. He has a total of 16 years of IT experience. He can be reached at [email protected]

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